Show Notes
Bari Weiss has become a flashpoint of controversy in her position running CBS News. She’s fired half a dozen senior producers and correspondents at 60 Minutes, the network’s flagship news program. With tumbling ratings and staff revolts, she’s been accused of ruining CBS. But perhaps this accusation doesn’t quite describe her actual goals, which is not running a successful network news operation but rather promoting a right-wing ideology that pleases Donald Trump and her employer, the Ellison family. I take up the controversies surrounding Weiss with David Klion, frequent guest of the program and writer for The Nation and other publications.
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More from The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
Many of Joe Biden’s closest advisors are now well-ensconced in the sinecures reserved for the elite, working at think tanks, academia, and major media outlets. Normally, they could expect to have future jobs when the Democrats retake the White House. But this cozy situation is being disrupted by ongoing reporting showing the extent of their complicity in the Gaza genocide and other US crimes in the Middle East. I spoke about this with Connor Echols, managing editor of Responsible Statecraft, who wrote an excellent article on the efforts to hold these officials accountable.
My Nation colleague Kate Wagner has written a brilliant critical essay on the Obama Center, which just opened in Chicago. I talk to her about how the history of presidential libraries, a now anachronistic form as well as the controversies surrounding the Obama Center’s displacement of public space and the dissatisfying way it memorializes the Obama presidency.
My Nation colleague Joan Walsh recently profiled Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff for the magazine. Georgia is very much a purple state. The fact that Ossoff won there and stands a good chance at re-election is evidence of his political talent, turning him into an increasingly prominent national figure. Joan and I talked about Ossoff’s background and the long struggle to transform Georgia, a formerly red state where Democrats are making headway.
The Trump administration has announced a new set of harsh sanctions against Iran. This is a strange development since originally Trump launched a war on Iran on the pretext that sanctions weren’t working. Trita Parsi of the Qunicy Institute argues the current tactic won’t work and is a holding action as both the US and Iran bide their time in a long conflict. Parsi’s writings can be found on his Substack. In the interview, we discuss his column on the surprising way many governments are rooting for Iran to check US imperialism.
The current conflict in the Middle East might escalate on a new front. In recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjaman Netanyahu has been touting Turkey as a potential threat on par with Iran. This conflict is partly spurred by the fact that Syria, currently rebuilding after a brutal civil war, is becoming a battleground for competing projects of regional hegemony. To discuss this as well as the prospects for a more realistic foreign policy, I talked to Adam Weinstein of the Quincy Institute.